Question about this picture

momofthing1and2 · Oct 16, 2008

It seems as though the child isnt as sharp as I wanted... any suggestions or idea what I did wrong? Thanks in advance!

eccs19 · Oct 16, 2008

I'm by far from an expert, but a couple things that I notice is that your ISO is high (1600), and shutter speed is at 1/50, and that is a little slow, so it could just be camera shake. I'm sure you'll get better input.

tsaraleksi · Oct 16, 2008

You missed the focus or it's blurred from handshake, I can't tell. But the exif indicates that your settings were pretty much wildly amiss. Why is it set at 1/50 f/7.1? What's in the background that you wanted to get in the image? You could open it up by a stop and either drop your ISO to 800, which would take all that crud out of the image, or set your shutter up to 1/100, which would deal with any kind of shake. But more than anything I think it's just that you missed the focus. Try placing a focus point onto his eye to help get that 'pop' effect.

Chewbecca · Oct 16, 2008

Exactly what the second poster stated.
With a D40, it'd be a cold day in hell before I shot at ISO 1600.
Noise reduction will remove the noise, but it's completely out of focus and no amount of PP sharpening is going to fix that.

I'm sorry. Try a reshoot?

Johnboy2978 · Oct 16, 2008

Eccs pointed out two things which really contribute to the lack of sharpness in your pic. The ISO of 1600 makes it really noisy which can make a normally sharp and well focused image look out of focus unless you are shooting w/ a DSLR that has very good noise control like a Nikon D3. In terms of shutter speed, unless you are using a tripod, the rule of thumb is to use a shutter speed that is atleast the reciprocal of the focal length of the lens you're using. The EXIF info of this pic shows that the focal length was 150mm thus, if you are shooting w/o a tripod, a shutter speed of 1/150 or faster would be needed to avoid motion blur (usually, w/ practice, you can improve on this number).

Things that will improve this shot would be using the lowest ISO you can get by with. I start with 100 and then go up as I need to, but increasing ISO also increases noise. Your aperture was f/7.1 and choosing a wider aperture would allow you to get a higher shutter speed and also make the background more blurred due to a more shallow depth of field.

Dao · Oct 16, 2008

It appear the hat is sharper than the eyes. So 1st, it maybe a focusing problem. And...

Here is the Exif
Camera Make: NIKON CORPORATION
Camera Model: NIKON D40
Image Date: 2008:10:15 22:15:57
Flash Used: No
Focal Length: 150.0mm (35mm equivalent: 225mm)
Exposure Time: 0.020 s (1/50)
Aperture: f/7.1
ISO equiv: 1600
White Balance: Auto
Metering Mode: Matrix
Exposure: aperture priority (semi-auto)

Focal length of 150mm, shutter speed of 1/50 on 150mm seems slow and the image may look blur due to camera shake. (D40 has crop factor of 1.5x)

Also, 150mm (225mm with crop factor) with F/7.1 and if the subject is only 10 feet away from the camera, the Depth of Field is about 0.37ft (subject in focus). So you have very small room to work with.

chrisburke · Oct 16, 2008

tripod as well.

momofthing1and2 · Oct 16, 2008

Johnboy2978 said:
Eccs pointed out two things which really contribute to the lack of sharpness in your pic. The ISO of 1600 makes it really noisy which can make a normally sharp and well focused image look out of focus unless you are shooting w/ a DSLR that has very good noise control like a Nikon D3. In terms of shutter speed, unless you are using a tripod, the rule of thumb is to use a shutter speed that is atleast the reciprocal of the focal length of the lens you're using. The EXIF info of this pic shows that the focal length was 150mm thus, if you are shooting w/o a tripod, a shutter speed of 1/150 or faster would be needed to avoid motion blur (usually, w/ practice, you can improve on this number).

Things that will improve this shot would be using the lowest ISO you can get by with. I start with 100 and then go up as I need to, but increasing ISO also increases noise. Your aperture was f/7.1 and choosing a wider aperture would allow you to get a higher shutter speed and also make the background more blurred due to a more shallow depth of field.

yea apparently I was an idiot! LOL! I am going to try this again this afternoon. I was having a horrible time with the settings (i was playing with them) Thank you ALL for the feedback!

momofthing1and2 · Oct 16, 2008

Chewbecca said:
Exactly what the second poster stated.
With a D40, it'd be a cold day in hell before I shot at ISO 1600.
Noise reduction will remove the noise, but it's completely out of focus and no amount of PP sharpening is going to fix that.

I'm sorry. Try a reshoot?

Thanks alot. It's my son and I was just playing with the new lens so not terrible tore up about it or anything... I wish it would have been in focus at least though. lol!

sdesha · Oct 16, 2008

He is so cute! Can't wait to see more, as you grow.

Dionysus · Oct 16, 2008

how do you see the exif info?

Dao · Oct 16, 2008

Dionysus said:
how do you see the exif info?

I use Firefox and install a plugins/Add-on call FxIF. So all I need to do is right click the image and choose properties. From that, I can see the EXif data. And it even provide a "Copy" button to copy EXif info.

This is the Add-on I use
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5673